How To Write The Best Supply Chain Resume
Write the ultimate Procurement resume that is both eye-catching and optimised towards securing your ideal next Supply Chain role.
I have worked in executive supply chain recruitment for 16 years. I built a Supply Chain & Procurement career site that ranked number 1 in Google for a variety of top search terms. As such, I understand how important it is to build a strong resume that makes an early impact with the reader and really aligns you to role that you are applying for.
Throughout this article we will explore the elements to focus on to set yourself apart from the competition and build a strong resume that conveys your skills, values and experience in the best possible way.
Early impact
I have read claims that the reviewer of a resume will make a subconscious decision on candidate suitability for a given position within around 7 seconds of opening/picking up the document. Although this may seem harsh, it goes without saying that if a role advertisement has generated 200 responses then it is more than likely the reviewer will not be reading all the content of each and every resume. This makes the opening page even more important.
Layout
Layout is always high on the list of priorities when it comes to creating an attention grabbing procurement resume. The reader should be able to find information readily and the presentation of the document is key to this being possible. Having reviewed thousands of supply chain and procurement related resumes in my time in recruitment, I can honestly say that layout needs to be your number one priority and should gear the resume towards the presentation of your best achievements and most impressive responsibilities held during your career.
For developing an eye catching design theme there are free tools on the internet such as Canva that offer a resume builder tool with access to hundreds of template themes.
Executive Summary
Many job seekers opt for an executive summary or profile at the top of the resume. This is absolutely fine however DO NOT get this wrong as this is the preface to the entire document.
Try to incorporate some of your biggest achievements into your opening profile with plenty of quantifiable data. For example:
MBA qualified Supply Chain executive with 20 years experience within the FMCG and Retail sectors leading teams of up to 600 indirect reports and P&Ls in excess of $600m
In one fell swoop you have provided the reader with an idea of your level of education, number of years experience, sector specific background, size of teams managed and level of budgetary responsibility.
Two or three sentences covering your responsibilities and biggest achievements should suffice to create a captivating opening statement.
Play to your Strengths
Another tip for resume layout is to play to your strengths: if you are educated to MBA or Masters level, or have a function specific Degree(s), then bring these to the forefront of the resume. A brief section for educational qualifications underneath Profile/Executive Summary will suffice. This could be particularly important for a recent graduate who has 6 months work experience but 4 years study in the procurement area – education can take on more of a priority than professional experience in such a case. If, however you do not possess any tertiary qualifications, you should bring your practical professional experience to the forefront and leave any reference to education towards the end of the document.
Career Summary
We have explored the creation of a concise opening statement with plenty of impact and the promotion of significant educational qualifications on the front page, now let’s consider a career summary.
Career summaries are a great way to provide the reader with immediate access to what your most recent role has been, how your career has gone to date, and should demonstrate a consistent increase in level of responsibility up until your current role. Times when career summaries should be avoided include recent graduates (for obvious reasons) and potentially interim contracts specialists. An interim contract project manager for instance may have worked at 20 or more companies in the last 5 years and therefore listing all the individual contracts in one list becomes exactly that – a list and not a summary! For an interim specialist or even a project manager it could be worth considering listing key competencies or areas of specialty – I would even recommend tailoring the resume further towards the opening by aligning all the contracts/projects that are most relevant – For instance “Examples of Strategic Transformation Projects”.
Having invested time in developing these areas of your front page, the reader now knows where you have worked, your level of education (if appropriate), some of your greatest achievements and is becoming well equipped to assess your suitability for the position … quickly!
Resume Length
Another point on layout is the age old question of how long the resume should be. The simple answer is the document should be long enough to include everything of relevance to the position you are applying for.
You should try and keep the resume to no more that 4 pages according to the Career Development Association of Australia.
Really focus on what you have achieved in the last 5 years, however if a role you executed 8 years prior is highly relevant (either due to specific industry sector or responsibilities) then develop this further. You should really be including just key highlights in terms of overall responsibility and achievements from your early career. If the last time you updated your resume was 6 years ago, then avoid simply adding to the document. The reason for this is times have moved on and your primary focus is what has happened in these last 6 years. By adding to the old version you will essentially be making the document unnecessarily lengthy and should first trim down the previous version always remembering to quantify responsibility and achievements to build credibility.
Order
Resumes should always be in reverse chronological order (seems logical?) as this highlights your most recent experience early in the document. I would always recommend including a brief description on the size, scope and nature of a business you have worked for. Yes, if you worked for 10 years with a leading bank then of course a resume reviewer from another bank is likely to be well informed on the company you have worked for. However, what happens if you decide to apply for a role in another industry sector? What if the resume reviewer is overseas and knows nothing of your organisation?
Then comes the role title, responsibilities and achievements. Procurement is an area where even the same job titles can have different degrees of focus and responsibility from one company to the next. You should leave the reader in no doubt as to the scope of your role/department/team/project. Never duplicate your job description on the resume: this is obvious to the reader. You can however use your job description as a point of reference to ensure you haven’t missed any key areas of responsibility.
Point of reference
Since your interview will involve questions, The trick around resume content is to include everything that is relevant but to leave enough for you to articulate further at an interview. Remember, you should easily be able to expand upon anything included on your resume at interview. Therefore, for any key achievements (most likely around strategic sourcing/spend reduction/ process formulation and optimisation/ stakeholder engagement/vendor management etc) you should be able to take the interviewer through the exact steps taken by you and the team. This last point is quite resounding since it never looks good to take sole credit for achievements that were part of a wider departmental/organisational agenda with many people involved. It’s absolutely fine to outline the parameters that you and your team drove to achieve a desired outcome if the contribution was significant to overall success.
Me, myself and I
Do not write resumes in third person sense e.g. “Stephen drove improved supplier engagement through….”. This gives the appearance the resume was concocted by another individual. In the same breath it is worth mentioning you should avoid using “I” frequently. In the previous example the sentence could start with “Improved supplier engagement through…”.
Target Roles
We can debate all day long about what makes an outstanding supply chain resume, however the main determining factor around the strength of a resume is what we are benchmarking the document against – i.e. the role to which the resume is being put forward. You could have a really strong general supply chain resume that details everything we have reviewed above, but when we look at the resume against a specific role it lacks depth in certain areas or spends too much time focusing on non-value added topics. If a job seeker is sitting down to write their resume, then as much as they should focus on what they have achieved to date, they should also consider what types of roles they will be interested in that meet their aspirations. Ensure you demonstrate the desired criteria and experience in your resume document for these types of positions. This will also strengthen your resume’s searchability in recruitment systems and it will also help you to concoct a strong Linkedin profile that can be found by headhunters searching for candidates against a role that fits your aspirations.
Social Links
Be sure to include your contact details and links to professional social media profiles such as Linkedin. If you notice that your Linkedin profile ends in a series of numbers you can actually change this through editing your profile and updating the profile URL (subject to availability).
Format
After having created an impactful and well presented resume you should consider saving the file in a couple of different formats.
Microsoft Word should form the basis of your resume building and editing however you may wish to convert to a PDF file for application submission. My recommendation when dealing through recruiters would be to ask if they would prefer the resume to be sent in Word or PDF format. Most recruitment firms will edit the resume with their own branding and remove and candidate contact details. This can become very difficult if the resume is in PDF format and lead to formatting issues.
The job market is currently at its most competitive and having the best possible resume increases your chances of securing an interview for your ideal next role. Do you have any other suggestions for what makes an outstanding resume? Let us know in the comments below!
